PAGE ONE -- Transplant Pioneer Goes Home

Jeff Getty, hoping that deep in his bone marrow a few baboon cells will go to war against the lethal virus that gave him AIDS, went home to Oakland yesterday.

Three weeks after a highly experimental transplant of purified marrow stem cells, Getty emerged from near-isolation and into a jammed press conference at San Francisco General Hospital. In the hospital entry lobby -- where he was greeted with the applause and cheers of hospital staff, friends and supporters -- Getty said he plans to go sailing this weekend.

His physician, Dr. Steven Deeks of the University of California at San Francisco, said it will be weeks before it is known whether the transplant is taking root and whether the immature baboon immune system cells will proliferate and pick up the cudgels for Getty's own immune system.

Deeks revealed that one worry is that Getty's white blood cells may have attacked and rejected the baboon cells before they could become established. Tests suggest that Getty's immune system may not have been weakened before the implant as much as the doctors had hoped.

If it works, the AIDS-resistant baboon immune cells will sharply reduce the activity of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and restore some or part of Getty's ability to resist infections generally.

But for now, Deeks said, "the only thing we have shown is that the procedure is safe, safer than we expected."

Looking a bit thin, but vigorous, the 38-year-old AIDS activist addressed the "naysayers" who predicted that the procedure would prove rapidly fatal: "Well, here I am, and you were wrong."

Getty praised the hospital and its workers, saying it is "truly the best place to get AIDS care

in the world."

On a table in front of him were hundreds of get-well cards and letters from among those that he has received from around the world, many from people with AIDS or their families and loved ones.

Asked how things have gone since the infusion of about a pint of strawberry-colored fluid into a vein in his arm December 14, he said, "It was a little rocky at first, but I feel better now than when I went in."

Getty said he lost eight pounds but has gained two back. The weight loss was from the treatment, before the transplant, with radiation and drugs to blunt his immune system's rejection of the simian cells. He also lost some hair from the back of his head from radiation treatment.

He said he has heard his fill of banana and monkey jokes. "I didn't even have a banana until yesterday," he said. "That's when they let me have fresh fruit."

After the press conference, Getty and his lover, Ken Kluegh, got into a red Acura coupe and headed for their loft apartment in West Oakland. Getty said he plans to go sailing this weekend.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY

Two years in the planning, the experiment is seen not only as a last-ditch chance to save Getty's life, but also as an illustration of an immensely powerful emerging medical technology that could someday save or extend the lives of millions of people.

Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, the University of Pittsburgh transplant specialist who developed the technique being tried on Getty, has said that the basic method may permit doctors some day to blend, manipulate or modify the immune systems of millions of people who face any of scores of diseases.

Already, the method used to purify the baboon cells so that they might survive in Getty has been applied in several leukemia patients who received marrow transplants from other people whose tissues are not close genetic matches. Doctors believe that mastery of immune system biology could permit wide ranges of transplants of marrow or organs such as hearts or kidneys among genetically dissimilar people, or from animals to people.

The baboon that provided the bone marrow to Getty was killed to preserve a wide range of its tissues for later study if necessary. But if ever needed on a large scale, animal marrow cells can be harvested without significant harm to the creatures.

A CONCERN

Deeks, Getty's doctor, provided new details on the procedure and Getty's response so far. Among the revelations was a troubling indication that more could have been done to weaken Getty's own immune system to pave the way for the baboon cells to survive and migrate from Getty's bloodstream into his bone marrow and proliferate there.

Among the targets of pretransplant drugs and radiation that temporarily blunted Getty's own immune system were neutrophils, which are white blood cells that attack invading bacteria and other alien organisms.

His neutrophil count dropped from 5,000 to 1,000 in the days after the procedure and is now rebounding.

TEST STARTS NEXT WEEK

Next week, a sample of Getty's bone marrow will be drawn. A test called polymerase chain reaction will search it for baboon cells living among his own bone marrow cells. The test will take several weeks to complete.

If no baboon cells show up, "that will be bad news," Deeks said. But testing will continue for several months in case the cells are simply slow to take hold and grow. Even if the transplant does not take, or fails to produce a second immune system augmenting Getty's own, experiments will go forward with other patients.

Multiple tests have shown no sign that the baboon cells have infected Getty with a monkey virus.

Getty said he is aware of the risks and the slim odds for success. But with a disease like AIDS, he said, "To wait and do nothing is to die."